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MONTREAL—It was a day of blazing speeds and raw emotions Saturday as the field was set for Sunday’s 50th anniversary Grand Prix du Canada with five-time race winner Lewis Hamilton on pole and his archrival, Sebastian Vettel, right beside him on the front row of the 10-row grid.

Hamilton, who won his sixth pole in Canada and his fourth of the 2017 season, flashed around the 4.361-kilometre Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in a track-record time of one minute, 11.459 seconds. The pole time for the race a year ago, also set by Hamilton, was 1:12:812.

The first six qualifiers for Sunday afternoon’s race all beat last year’s record.

Four-time world champion Vettel, driving for Ferrari, gave it the old college try but bobbled slightly on his final flying lap and wound up just a tick behind Hamilton with a time of 1:11:789. Hamilton’s Mercedes teammate, Valtteri Bottas, was third fastest (1:12:177) and Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari turned in a time of 1:12:252.

Canadian Lance Stroll failed to qualify well and will start 17th in the 20-car field Sunday afternoon.

In winning the pole, Hamilton tied his idol, the late Ayrton Senna, with 65, second on the all-time list behind leader Michael Schumacher, who won 68 during his career. Hamilton was shaken and almost broke down when presented with a race-worn crash helmet belonging to Senna and sent to him by the legend’s family.

“I’m shaking,” said the three-time world champion, who is regarded by many as the best driver of his generation and among the best of all time.

“I’m speechless,” the most successful British driver in Grand Prix racing history continued. “Ayrton was the one who inspired me to be where I am today, so to match him and to receive this is the greatest honour. So thank you to the Senna family and to everyone here. God bless you all.”

Vettel, who leads the world championship standings by 25 points and has won this race once, made a slight mistake in trying to either equal Hamilton’s time or beat it.

“I’m not too happy with the last run we had,” said the winner of the last F1 race in Monaco where Ferraris finished first and second. “I would have loved to repeat the second run; I probably pushed a little bit too hard. I lost it a bit here (at turn one) and down in turn two and then I tried a bit of catch-up.”

But then he added: “‘It was a good qualifying session, though. I was getting better at the end. I like our pace; think we have the pace to win tomorrow.”

For his part, third-place qualifier Bottas was short and to the point: “The race is tomorrow.”

Formula One qualifying is a knockout procedure in which all 20 cars go out for what’s known as Q1 and have 18 minutes in which to set their best time. The slowest five are eliminated. The remaining 15 continue into Q2, which lasts for 15 minutes and five more are eliminated. The remaining ten drivers then have 12 minutes to go for the pole.

After the top four, the remaining drivers in the top ten for Sunday’s race will be Red Bull teammates Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo, Felipe Massa (Williams), Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon (Force India) and Nico Hulkenberg (Renault).

The second Renault driver, Jolyon Palmer, is reportedly driving his last race for Renault. He managed to squeeze his way into Q2 Saturday — just — and was the slowest of that group. He’ll start 15th Sunday while Hulkenberg, racing with equal equipment, made it to Q3, will go off tenth and has consistently outraced his teammate.

Hamilton called his pole-winning lap “sexy.”

“It was a sexy lap,” he said. “It was a great lap. I can’t believe it came together so well. The first sector was fantastic and we then managed to be just a little bit up (faster) on each one (sector). The team did a fantastic job to learn from our mistakes at the last race (Monaco, where he finished out of the points) and really build up for this race, so I owe it all to them.”

Hamilton was out on the circuit in the final minute in case Vettel went faster and he’d have to try to respond but cruised back to the pits when informed his rival had fallen short.

Stroll was not happy with his Williams team after he failed to make it out of Q1.

“We decided to stay on the same set of tires the whole session, so maybe that was the wrong call — although it’s easy to say that now,” the 18-year-old told a scrum of reporters. “At the beginning, we looked OK like we were going to get into Q2, and then we just fell back and I couldn’t improve. It was just a tough day. It’s disappointing but there’s nothing we can do now.”

Talking about the race, Stroll — who’s only finished two of the Grand Prix races he’s started and has yet to score his first point in the world’s most challenging racing series — said that the team has to sort a few things out.

“We have to get back on top of things,” he said. “We’ll see for tomorrow what we can do. But you never know. So much can happen in a race; it’s best to look forward.”

The 15-minute-long Q2 was relatively uneventful, although two-time world champion and Indy 500 driver Fernando Alonso was eliminated. His McLaren had acted up for much of the weekend — with the exception of a burst of speed in second practice Friday that saw him run seventh fastest — and didn’t improve for qualifications.

His popularity knows no bounds, however. As he walked through the pits afterward, he was roundly applauded by fans occupying grandstands on the main straight. Only Lewis Hamilton’s cheers were louder.

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